Don't say another word, my boy! I know what young love's like! I'm feeling so good, I'll not only give Miss Brant the night off, but I'll get you into the event of the season-- --my latest anti-Spider-Man lecture! Bring your camera -- you can take pictures for our coverage of the event, and I'll deduct the price of the tickets from your check!

In a tale told from his own point of view, John Jameson has come to New York to observe Spider-Man and determine if he would be right for a special NASA mission. John watches as Spider-Man battles a new super-powered group named The Spacemen. He doesn't know how the fight got started, but there is a metal safe up on the roof (the scene of battle), so he figures it probably had something to do with that. When he tells his dad what he saw, Jonah says Spider-Man probably stole the safe from someone, and the Spacemen were attempting to bring him to justice. John, who had been rescued by Spider-Man once before, doesn't see it that way.

Later, John and Jonah attend a Spacemen press conference together. The leader of the Spacemen, Gantry, tells the origin of his group. He says that in an attempt to duplicate the powers of the Fantastic Four, the government had sent a satellite into the same region of space in which the FF had been bombarded with cosmic rays. When the satellite returned to Earth, the Spacemen absorbed the rays themselves, giving them super powers, albeit different powers than those of the FF. They say that they want to do good deeds for the government, and that begins with apprehending Spider-Man who is still wanted by the police. John says that if there had been a satellite launched into space, he would have heard about it, but Jonah believes everything the Spacemen say, and over the course of the next few days he uses his paper and his TV appearances to put all his support behind the Spacemen.

There are a few more battles between Spider-Man and the Spacemen, and each battle ends in Spider-Man escaping, some money missing, and the Spacemen signing autographs for their adoring public. John Jameson grows increasingly more suspicious of the Spacemen, while Jonah Jameson continues to use every opportunity to put the blame on Spider-Man. When Peter turns in some new pictures of the public turning against Spider-Man, John wonders if he should talk to Peter about Spider-Man, but he doesn't get that chance as his dad is now dragging him to a Spacemen parade hosted by the city of New York.

At the parade, George Stacy tells JJJ he needs to stop his smear campagin against Spider-Man, and John and Jonah argue over whether Spider-Man will show up, until he actually does. He immediately goes into action against the Spacemen, telling Gantry that he used a special device to turne in to their scrambled radio frequency, and has learned conclusively not only that they were the ones who stole the money but also where they stashed it. The Spacemen use Spider-Man's own spider sense against him to have him sucked inside the member of the Spacemen known as Vacuum, and they all end up in space. Once there, Orbit puts Spidey into orbit around the member named Satellite. As there is no air in Vacuum, the Spacemen reason that he will soon suffocate, and then they can easily turn him over to the police who still think Spider-Man is responsible for the thefts.

Spider-Man, still in orbit, attaches his web to Satellite, then swings himself around until he slams into Vacuum again, getting them all out of space and back to the scene of the parade, and not only that but when they come back they crash into the parade float, inside of which was the stolen loot. The crowd then realizes that the Spacemen were the real crooks.

Caught by the police, it is revealed the Spacemen lied about how they got their powers, and that they had never been connected to any government agency. They were simply space program washouts who had stolen meteor fragments which, when cracked open, emitted a special gas that gave them their powers. Spider-Man had done so well in exposing the frauds that NASA decided they couldn't use him in their mission, which was to test the effect of space travel on human beings, because Spider-Man was deemed too far outside the norm. Before John leaves, Jonah is so distraught he can't even say good-bye. He can only stare out the window, muttering to himself that nobody can really be that noble...

Notes

This story takes place following the events of Amazing Spider-Man #8 in which Flash Thompson broke Peter's glasses and Spider-Man fought the Living Brain.

The true origin of the Spacemen suggests that they stole one of the same type of meteors which the Looter used for his powers in Amazing Spider-Man #36.

John Jameson's last line in this issue is, "They could have been heroes..." This is most likely meant to foreshadow the storyline beginning in Amazing Spider-Man #41 when John Jameson gets super powers of his own and tries to become a super hero himself. This line could also be applied to Jonah Jameson who has the intelligence and the resources available to do great things for mankind, yet uses his paper to carry out a personal grudge against Spider-Man.